Hollow Lungs
by daggers.silver
Summary: Spoilers for A Lie Guarded, 4x04. Just some good ol agony from Bellamy's perspective after the end of A Lie Guarded because I am not okay and I needed an outlet for these horrifying emotions.


**A/N: I am not okay.**

 **Spoilers for 4x04, A Lie Guarded.**

 **000**

 _Shout out from the bottom of my lungs  
_ _A plague on both your houses  
_ _This thing  
It's a family affair  
_ _It's drawing out my weakness_

 _Big boys don't cry  
_ _They don't ask why_

 **000**

 _No._

It begins with a swell, a swoop deep in his chest, a cavity opening to the frigid air. He feels reality wobble at his fingertips.

 _It was a good death._

Muscles refuse to cooperate, stiff yet weak, sick, unsteady, but he manages to swivel away from their faces, their unreadable faces. The waves crash one after another, cold, hot, deep aches spreading over his body. A rushing in his ears. A keening sound deep in his chest, knotted, tight, heavy. An explosion without means of escape.

He knows more than feels his body drop to the floor, fingers curled around rusted bars until they creak.

The world fades with a high pitched ring as something splits deep inside, shattered glass in his throat, gravel between his teeth, fire and ice in his veins, swarming like bees. Violent expulsions of the chaos beneath his ribs wrack his entire frame, dry like wood, bones scraping together. A fuzziness, clouds hovering, he's hovering, floating, simply existing and nothing more. He feels disjointed, sliced into pieces and scattered in the wind. He distantly registers hands seizing him from behind, pulling. The world is a blur, nothing save the vice gripping his chest, constricting his airway.

 _O._

Limp like a puppet with its strings cut. Wooden, hollow, cold, dead. Pain sprouts goosebumps over foreign skin, tracing a pattern, carving loss into his being. Etched by an angry claw, tattooed over his heart. Where the burning ache is. Where a gaping hole is. Emptied. Numb.

What was the last thing he said to her? Her name? Did she know, as a simple fact of reality, ho _w much she means to him?_ Simply by _existing? Did she know?_

Death feels like a tangible force looming against his spine.

 _No._

A rushing glow of pain, twinging across his collarbone down to the pit of his stomach, curling and twisting, all-encompassing, overwhelming.

Octavia—small fingers, wide eyes, head nestled in the crook of his arm.

Octavia—sad smile, genuine laugh, petite body crammed beneath the floor.

Octavia—bright features, excited, awed, feet shuffling to the beat of a crowd. Octavia—scared, tear-stained cheeks, too far for him to reach.

 _No._

Octavia—bold, ambitious, reckless, embers in her eyes and in the quirk of her smile. Octavia—dirt and grit, strong arms, fierce, coordinated, deadly, worn but standing tall. Octavia—thick-skinned, eyes shadowed, shielded, angry, still strong as her knuckles dig into his face. Still strong as she fights alongside them, as she moves forward, as she protects. Tears gathered but not falling. A clench in her jaw. Blood on her hands, but he's got blood on his too.

Octavia—his sister, his family, his support, his strength, his inspiration. His _everything._

 _Octavia._

His sister. His responsibility.

A gag pinches at the base of his throat, choking through saltwater and numb lips. He can't _breathe._ The ground rattles beneath him, trembling, shaking, his heart slamming against his spine, knocking on his ribs.

Voices garble and entwine, incomprehensible, just another sound, meaningless as a rustle of wind, the chirping of birds. He feels body-less, disconnected. Nonexistent. Drifting through a world reduced to muffled sensations, a poor imitation of life, of existence. Hands brush over numb skin, words fall against deaf ears, questions, unanswered by a mute tongue, people moving across a sightless gaze.

 _Bellamy._

The vice is thick, strong, pressed against the inside of his lungs. They're shriveling like raisins, twitching to the too-quick drumbeat of his blood. Breathing is hard. But that's reasonable. When a person becomes your oxygen, you wouldn't expect any less when they disappear.

He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want to exist. Yet when his knees buckle beneath him, he feels it. When fire ants sprout inside his lungs, his existence is startlingly palpable no matter how much he wills it away, corners it in his mind.

" _Bellamy,_ " a sound, solid, enticing.

He despises how much he wants to reach for it.

" _Breathe._ "

He doesn't want to.

A firm grip takes hold of his shoulder, familiar features sharpening as his mind works against him to _comprehend._ He sees brown eyes, dark hair, peppered.

" _That's it. Just breathe._ "

And as much as he wills himself not to, to just fall asleep, to let the universe take him, instincts claw their way from his thoughts. They believe the voice, the eyes.

The jaded scraps of reality scramble to fit themselves back together, disjointed sensations rushing to the forefront of his mind. The wind on his neck, the earth beneath his knees, the concern in the voice that strives to sooth his mind. _Breathing_ is what his instincts tackle first. Taming the creature that writhes in his stomach, clawing at his lungs, seeping him of strength. He listens to the steady breath of his companion and tries to match it.

" _Good. You're doing good._ "

Words jumble at the back of his clogged throat, threatening to spill, stuttering from his lips in a choked sound.

Everything feels so _heavy._ Like his skin is pulled taught around bones, a rusted machine with too-dry joints. Unable to function, gravity too much for fragile messes and exhausted muscle. A deep, tingling ache has burrowed into his marrow, settling in, ruling his movements, tired, lethargic, _heavy._

" _Hey..._ Hey. _Look at me, Bellamy._ "

On impulse, he obeys, registering the quiet worry masked in the firm command.

"Listen to me. You're going to be okay. You just need to breathe. Can you do that?"

It doesn't sound wary, soft, like he would expect it to be. Instead, it's steady, an honest request that he can read in Kane's gaze.

He can't maintain eye contact, but he nods at the blurry ground anyway, throat knotted even as he tries to steady his breathing. The heels of his hands dig into his eyes, stars popping on the back of his eyelids from the pressure. _Breathe. Breathe._

The rough hands return to his biceps, dragging him to his feet before he can gather himself, limbs still pinching with pins and needles. They do the same with Kane, ushering them both onward. It's only then that he vaguely registers the roaring sound ahead of them. Cold browns, grays, blacks, a sea of dull color, bodies strong and armed with sharpened metal.

 _No._

He takes a deep shuddering breath and closes his eyes, blocking out the sights, the sounds, the overwhelming pressure of _living._

And then he focuses on the effort of putting one foot in front of the other.

 **000**

 **A/N: Still not okay. Come and cry with me. Bob Morley, take my stupid money. You're incredible. Thank you for making my chest hurt and my stomach squirm in the best way possible. You are amazing, and talented. R.I.P. me.**


End file.
